Is It Wrong To Eat Horsemeat?

Horse DNA has been found in burgers sold by four major supermarket chains in Britain – Aldi, Iceland, Lidl and Tesco – forcing stores to withdraw them from sale.In one sample, the Guardian reports, horsemeat accounted for 29% relative to the beef content.

Despite the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which made the discovery, saying that the findings posed no health risk and consumers should not be worried, it is urging people to return any implicated products to their retailers.

The Guardian has rounded up "the best and worst jokes" on Twitter following the revelations but the reaction from the supermarket chains, the authorities and the media suggests we are incredibly squeamish about eating horsemeat.

Why? Is it more immoral to dine on a horse than a cow?

The Telegraph's James Kirkup thinks not: "there's nothing wrong with eating horse, or any other meat, just as long as we're honest about it. And that means everyone, producer and consumer alike."

Food blogger Lagusta Yearwood, commenting on the student who recently discovered a "brain" in his Kentucky Fried Chicken meal, wrote on Comment is free:

"We continually draw distinctions between what's dinner and what's trash, who our pets are and who our meals are. We live with cats and dogs we smother with love and affection, yet other animals live miserable lives and endure horrific deaths because we've decided their lives are only worth the price of a fast food meal... The fast food system – cheap food prepared quickly, eaten quickly, forgotten quickly – hinges on one slim peg: wilful ignorance. When incidences like this crop up, they slam right into what we don't want to know. So we get outraged. But obviously the real scandal is that we're allowing ourselves to fall for this great lie in the first place: that what we eat doesn't matter, that it arrived in our hands magically, and that there are no consequences to our diets."